CORRESPONDENCES OF MARC SUSSELMAN PART 2

Marc Susselman: A Continuation of Internet Letters...

Prof. Wolff has either not read my commentary regarding the indictment; or he has read it, and rejects it. I surmise the former, rather than the latter.

In his post today, "Numbers," he asserts that Trump's conversation with Raffsperger, in which he is recorded as saying to Raffensperger, "I only want you to find 11,800 votes," i.e., one more vote than Biden's 11,799 votes, must mean that Trump was asking Raffensperger to "manufacture" 11,800 Trump votes which do not actually exist. Prof. Wolff maintains that this recording is conclusive proof of Trump's guilt. As I indicated in my commentary, however, Trump's position has been that there were numerous pro-Trump votes which have been overlooked, misplaced, or destroyed. He is entitled to believe this, just as much as David Hume was entitled to believe that the existence of causation cannot be categorically proven, notwithstanding the derision of his critics. Trump's use of the word "find," could have meant just that - please find the 11,800 votes which were cast for me, but which have been overlooked or are missing. And, as I indicated in my commentary, were I cross-examining Raffensperger, if he agrees with Prof. Wolff's interpretation, I would ask him on what basis he believes this I am confident that an effective cross-examiner could get Raffensperge to admit that he does not know for certain which interpretation Trump intended.

Prof. Wolff's adamance in his interpretation is just another example of an academic, who is supposed to analyze events with a critical and objective eye, allowing his bias to compromise his judgment. And I find this very disappointing. If an eminent academic can succumb to bias in evaluating events, and abdicate his commitment to objective and rational analysis, what hope is there for any intellectual integrity in this world?

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s.w.

I bring Hume into the argument in order to make the point that philosophers, such as Wolff, have no problem giving Hume latitude to believe and advocate for positions which many people, including many of his contemporaries, consider ludicrous, but would never infer from this that Hume could not have actually believed the philosophical position he was advocating, and therefore must have been lying.  It is relevant to my point that academics, such as Wolff, have no problem understanding abstruse and arcane issues from the  past, but are unable to apply the same reasoning to current events, and allow their judgment to be compromised by their biases, in this case their bias against Trump.

Marc

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David,

I just saw your email questioning my analogy, and, yes, you have it wrong.

The error is in your statement that Smith and Wolff are relying on statements by Trump to others that he lost the election. That was the point of my prior commentary – in order to prove that Trump did not really believe that he had won the election by virtue of the failure to count votes which were cast in his favor, Smith has to have evidence by a witness that Trump actually told that witness that he knew he had lost. But nothing in the indictment indicates that Smith actually has such evidence. And his saying to Raffensperger, “Find me 11,800 votes,” is not, by any means, and certainly not beyond a reasonable doubt, an admission that Trump knew he had actually lost. A valid interpretation of his statement to Raffensperger is, “Please find me among the votes which were cast in my favor, but which have been overlooked, 11,800 of those votes which were cast in my favor.” Now, I admit that the statement is ambiguous, but the ambiguity works in Trump’s favor, since, given the ambiguity, Smith cannot prove – based at least on this statement – that Trump, beyond a reasonable doubt, knew he had lost, and was asking Raffensperger to “manufacture” 11,800 pro-Trump votes. Only bias against Trump would lead one to conclude he meant the latter, rather than the former. This does not prove that Trump did not actually believe there were a lot of pro-Trump ballots which had not been counted, any more than the fact that many of Hume’s detractors questioned the sense of his belief regarding the validity of our belief in causation proves that Hume must have been lying.

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David,  

Again, you miss the point.  Trump does not have the burden to prove this.  Smith has the burden of proving that Trump’s belief that pro-Trump ballots were not counted, went missing or were destroyed is false, and he has to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.  It would be the same as proving that Trump’s hypothetical belief that unicorns exist could be disproved by offering evidence that no one has ever seen a unicorn.  Trump would respond, you have not looked in the right place. Moreover, he would not have to respond, since Smith has the burden of proof.  If Smith fails to prove that Trump’s belief is false, and that Trump knows it is false, at the close of the prosecution’s case, Trump’s lawyers could move for a directed verdict, which the trial judge, assuming she were intellectually honest and not biased against Trump, would have to grant.

As you say, Trump’s lawyers filed some 50 lawsuits in state and federal court claiming there was massive election fraud in the 2020 election which allowed Biden to win, rather than Trump, the real winner.  Do you know what kind of election fraud was being alleged in each of those 50 lawsuits?

There a multiple kinds of election fraud which a lawsuit could allege: (1) that ballots which were counted for Biden were manufactured; (2) that the election machines were manipulated to increase the number of votes for Biden, over Trump (a claim that attorney Powell was making); (3) that mail-in ballots were illegally cast favoring Biden; (4) that ballots cast in favor of Trump were missed, lost, or illegally destroyed.  Have you checked each of the lawsuits to determine which kind of fraud was being alleged?  Based on my review of articles describing the election fraud claims, they all alleged one or more of the 1st 3 kinds of election fraud, and the evidence demonstrated that none of these claims of election fraud were valid.  I found no lawsuit which claimed there was election fraud on the basis of (4).  But this is the kind of fraud that Trump has claimed he believes occurred.  As an academic, don’t you think that you have a responsibility – before you claim that the dismissal of the lawsuits demonstrates that Trump’s assertion of election fraud has been disproved beyond a reasonable doubt – to determine precisely what kind of election fraud was being alleged in the lawsuits which were dismissed?

Moreover, let’s assume, arguendo, that one of the lawsuits alleged election fraud on the basis of (4), and the court concluded there was no credible evidence to support this.  Would this entail that when Trump repeats that he believes that (4) occurred, that he knows this is false and he must be lying?  Of course not.  All this would prove is that, more likely than not, Trump does not believe (4) and more likely than not knows that (4) did not occur.  But this is not what Smith has accused Trump of.  In the indictment, he has not stated that it is likely that Trump did not believe that he won the election.  Rather, he repeatedly asserts that Trump knowingly falsely asserted that he had won the election.  But there is a big difference between claiming someone more likely than not did not believe x, and that the individual likely knew that x was not the case and did not believe that x was the case.  As you know, under the conventional theory of epistemology, the assertion that Trump knows x (i.e., that he lost the election) requires that (a) x be true; (b) that Trump believes x; and (c) that there is adequate evidence to support Trump’s belief that x is true.  All that Smith can prove is (a) and (c).  If Trump insists that he believes he did not lose the election, that he believes he actually won the election, without proving (b), Smith cannot prove that Trump knew he had lost the election.  The only way that Smith can prove (b) is if he has a witness who will testify, unequivocally, that Trump told him/her that he knew he had lost the election.

This is going to sound like an ad hominem comment.  But so be it.  I repeat, I find it very disheartening that academics, professors of philosophy no less, are willing to forsake critical thinking due to their bias against Trump, and their desire to see him convicted and wearing an orange jump-suit.  This is nothing new in history.  Numerous times in the course of history intellectual hypocrisy has led purported people of reason to abandon critical judgment and succumb to their emotions to satisfy their biases.  I just find it very disappointing to find it occurring on Wolff’s blog, and by you.

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Query:

Can a sitting President be imprisoned for violating state law?

Answer: No.

The only way that a sitting President can be removed from office is via impeachment. Trial of Trump and his alleged co-conspirators in Georgia will in all likelihood drag out past the November, 2024, election. If Trump is elected (God forbid), it is true that he cannot pardon himself for violating Georgia law (assuming he is convicted), but marshals from the State of Georgia cannot, under the Constitution, march up to Washington and drag a President Trump down to Georgia to serve out a prison sentence.

So the practical question comes down to this: Do these indictments make it more likely that he will be elected, or less?

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Michael: One thing is for certain. Trump is getting a heck of a lot more air time on TV because of the indictments. This extra air time makes one forget about every other candidate & only focus on him. So people are bound to think: 'Oh it's Trump again. Probably getting indicted again. He looks the same. He talks the same. After all of these indictments, they still can't truly harm him or break his spirit. That's the kind of leader I want!'

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Michael,

Good point.

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I have just printed the 98 p. Georgia indictment and briefly scanned it.

Query: If I ask David Zimmerman to break into and rob a bank, is my asking him to do this a criminal offense?

Answer: I do not believe so. Asking someone to commit a crime is not a criminal offense. If I do not offer to pay David any money to rob the bank, it is not a criminal offense. If I do not tell David that he can keep half of the booty from robbing the bank, it is not a criminal offense. If I actually pay him money in advance of robbing the bank, and he robs the bank, that probably is a criminal offense. But what if I pay him in advance and he does not rob the bank? Is that a criminal offense? I do not believe so. Is it an attempt to bribe someone to rob a bank? Maybe. But unless the bribe is actually paid, there is no attempt. Even if I lie to David and tell him that there are no criminal consequences if he robs the bank and is caught, it is not a criminal offense.

Based on my cursory review of he indictment, that is a lot of what is in the indictment. For example, in Count 6 on p. 74, the indictment alleges that Giulini, Stallings, an Smith III, “unlawfully solicited, requested, and importuned certain public officers then serving as elected members of the Georgia House of Representatives … to engage in conduct constituting the felony offense of Violation of Oath by Public Officer … by unlawfully appointing presidential electors from the State of Georgia,” even if true, is this a criminal offense? I do not believe so.

Count 6 charges the accused with violating O.C.G.A. § 16010-1, which is titled “Violation of Oath by Public Officer,” and states: “Any public officer who willfully and intentionally violates the terms of his oath as prescribed by law shall, upon conviction thereof, be punished by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than five years.” This statute makes it a criminal offense for the public officer to actually succumb to a request to violate his/her oath. If the public officer does not succumb, there is no crime. Moreover, even if the public officer does succumb, the person who allegedly requested that the public office violate his/her oath has not committed a crime. Here, there is no evidence that any of the public officers whom Giuliani, et al., requested they violate their oath actually did violate their oath. There is no crime here, period.

If the rest of the indictment is like this, then the indictment is nothing more than a tempest in a teapot. Do these attorneys working for the State of Georgia know what the hell they are doing?

I am afraid that this is another example of overreaching by prosecutors, e.g., Jack Smith, blinded by their dislike and antipathy regarding Trump into engaging in prosecutorial overreach – and it may backfire, with terrible consequences for the rest of us.

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The plot thickens. In Count 2 on p. 72, the Georgia indictment charges Giuliani, et al., with, by soliciting certain Georgia officials to violate their oath, violating O.C.G.A. §§ 16-4-7 and 16-10-1. I have addressed § 16-10-1 above, and there is clearly no crime there if the Georgia officials did not actually violate their oath.

§ 16-4-7, however, is a bit more problematic. It states: “”A person commits the offense of criminal solicitation when, with intent that another person engage in conduct constituting a felony, he solicits, requests, commands, importunes, or otherwise attempts to cause the other person to engage in such conduct.” This is directly on point regarding my hypothetical of asking David Zimmerman to rob a bank. According to this statute, if I did this in Georgia, I could be prosecuted for committing a crime, even if David does not rob the bank.

This raises serious 1st Amendment issues. You will also note that the statute requires proving the accused’s actual “intent” – which requires, in turn, that the accused know that what s/he is asking the individual to do constitutes a crime. I would, of course know, that robbing a bank is a felony, and therefore would be guilty under the statute if I made the request to David in Georgia. But does this violate my right of free speech? Moreover, regarding intent, did Giuliani, et al., know that sending a different slate of electors to Washington constituted a crime? What if they argue, as I expect they will, that they believed the “false” electors were not “false” – that it was the electors who were chosen based on massive election fraud – fraud which included the failure to count pro-Trump ballots, or pro-Trump ballots which were actually destroyed, which were actually false. Proving intent can start getting murky.

So, I did some quick research on how Georgia interprets § 16-4-7 and the 1st Amendment issue. In English v. State, 290 Ga. App. 378 (Ga. Ct. App. 2008), the Georgia Court of Appeals upheld the conviction of the criminal defendant for soliciting two individuals to murder two game wardens. There was no evidence that he paid them anything, and the wardens were not killed. But is there a sufficiently significant difference between “please send a different set of electors to Washington” political speech, and “please murder these two game wardens for me” speech?

What has the S. Ct. said? There are several doctrines which the S. Ct. invokes in overturning criminal statutes as unconstitutionally encroaching on free speech: (1) the speech is clearly protected and criminalizing it is unconstitutional, e.g., ordinances which criminalize door-to-door sales soliciting, or political candidate soliciting; (2) the statute is vague, and does not make sufficiently clear what precisely is being criminalized; (3) the statute is overbroad, i.e., the statute could have the effect of criminalizing protected speech, different from the speech in the case before the court, but having the effect of “chilling” protected speech. I submit that it would not be unlikely that the S. Ct. would hold that the Georgia statute is both vague and overbroad, and therefore unconstitutional, resulting in a reversal of any of the named conspirators convicted of violating it.

In Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U.S. 1 (2010), several individuals and organizations which advocated on behalf of two foreign organizations – the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eclam – sought an injunction against the enforcement of 18 U.S.C. § 2339B(a)(1), which makes it a crime to provide “material support or resources” to certain foreign organizations which engage in terrorist activity, against them. The plaintiffs claimed that applying the statute to their advocacy, which only supported the peaceful objectives of these organizations, violated the free speech provision of the 1st Amendment. J. Roberts, writing the majority opinion, held that the statute did not impermissibly infringe on free speech. (Elena Kagan, as the government’s Solicitor General, argued on behalf of the government.) Justices Breyer, Ginsburg and Sotomayor dissented. Justice Breyer wrote: “Not even the ‘serious and deadly problem’ of international terrorism can require automatic forfeiture of First Amendment rights.” (Italics in the original.)

How will the S. Ct. treat the Georgia statute when – when, not if - the case goes to the S. Ct., I do not know. But I would not be surprised if the Court holds that application of the statute to the alleged efforts to persuade officials in Georgia to send a different slate of electors to Washington was unconstitutional on all 3 levels: it infringed on political free speech, and the statute is vague and overbroad. In any event, by the time the S. Ct. rules, Trump will either have been elected, or not have been elected. And all that Jack Smith and the District Attorney of Fulton County have succeeded in doing, in my opinion, is increased the likelihood that Trump will be elected, with disastrous consequences for the United States, and the world.

I fully expect in the coming days that Prof. Wolff will issue a post praises the District Attorney of Fulton County and expressing the opinion that they now have gotten that scumbag, given the mountain of evidence cited against him and his alleged co-conspirators, and most of the blog’s commenters will jump on board. I would caution them that quantity does not equate to quality.

I never thought that I would live to see a proto-fascist elected President of the United States, resulting in the dismantling of our democracy as we know it. Unfortunately, Sinclair Lewis may have been more prophetic than he realized when he hypothesized that it could happen here. It could.

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[Marc's following post brings up the topic of Free Speech. And although I disagree with his views towards the lack of any productive utility in supporting Christianity, when one can with monetary means (and in any other Abrahamic Religion for that matter: meaning religions categorized under: Judaism, Christianity, or Islam), I felt that a short response could be of some service to our country's religious traditions & defense thereof...]

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On 24 August 2023, MS wrote...

The other night I woke up in the middle of the night, around 3 A.M. I went to my refrigerator to get a snack, turned on my television and began channel surfing. I came across a program on the local NBC station. It was a televangelist singing the praises of a new inspirational book he had read about Jesus, and how reading it had changed his life. He assured his viewers that if they purchased the book from him, and read it, it would change their lives too. Just send him a check for $25.00, and the book was theirs, and they could look forward to their lives being changed.

I assume there are multitudes of televangelists in Georgia with similar programs, urging their viewers to send them money for this or that book about Jesus; for a blessing that will cure them of their Parkinson’s disease, or their cancer, or their hemorrhoids. Every Sunday morning, in churches throughout Georgia, priests and ministers are sermonizing to their flocks, telling them about how Jesus was born of a virgin; how he walked on water; how he raised Lazarus from the dead; how he was crucified, and resurrected. If only the parishioners would surrender themselves to Jesus, to declare their faith in Jesus, regardless their past iniquities, they will be saved, find salvation, and be welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven upon their death. And at the end of the service, a plate is passed around the congregation, and the parishioners are asked to make a monetary donation to the church, and by so doing they, too, will be saved, and find salvation.

Most of the people who read Prof. Wolff’s blog, and Prof. Wolff himself, believe these programs and religious services are hokum, a fraud perpetrated on a naïve public to generate money for the televangelists and their churches. I am sure this occurs in Fulton, County, Georgia. Has Fani Willis, the Fulton County D.A. ever considered indicting these televangelists and church leaders for engaging in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the public in violation of the Georgia RICO statute? Indeed, the same speech and conduct occurs every Sunday morning in virtually every state in the United States – a vast, nationwide criminal conspiracy which many would claim defrauds honest, hard-working Americans of their hard-earned money, in the name of religion. Why hasn’t Ms. Willis indicted them all in Georgia for engaging in a vast criminal conspiracy, violating the Georgia RICO statute? She herself may belong to one of these churches, and may herself make contributions to their ministry. Why does she not indict them? Why? Because she knows such a criminal indictment would be thrown out of court, and she would not be re-elected, because their speech – and their conduct – is protected under the freedom of religion clause of the 1st Amendment.

Trump and his supporters maintain that Willis’s RICO indictment against Trump and his co-conspirators is a political witch hunt to penalize them for exercising their right to engage in political speech, protected by the 1st Amendment – just as the speech and conduct of the televangelists, ministers and priests are protected by the 1st Amendment. And, as much as it pains me to agree with a bunch of Republicans, I agree with them. The RICO count against Trump and his alleged co-conspirators accuses them of engaging in various verbal actions to persuade election officials in Georgia to find 11,800 uncounted votes in Trump’s favor; to send a set of different electors to Washington, in violation of Georgia’s election law. Is there any claim that any money passed hands, that any threat of physical violence was made against any public officials to do as they were being told, or else? No. They were just asked to violate Georgia law – but none of them did as they were asked. Yet Ms. Willis maintains that making such requests, engaging in such urging, was criminal – although it was no more than political speech protected under the 1st Amendment, and is no more criminal than what televangelists and church leaders do every Sunday in Georgia, and throughout the U.S. It is criminal, Prof. Wolff and his readers would maintain, because it was based on false assertions of fact – but did Jesus really walk on water, and was he resurrected? Is it criminal to believe in false facts, and to attempt to urge others to believe in the same false facts? If so, then a lot of people should be in jail, like all the lobbyists who tell lies in Washington in order to get legislation passed which favors their clients.

Prof. Wolff has expressed his admiration for Eugene Debs, and I infer he believes that Debs’ prosecution for violating the law was politically motivated and improper. What was Eugene Debs convicted of? He was charged with, and convicted of, engaging in sedition during WWI by virtue of a speech he gave on June 16, 1918, urging that men eligible for the mandatory military draft resist induction – i.e., he was verbally encouraging others to violate the law. Prof. Wolff, and his readers, I suspect believe that this was unjust, and constituted punishing Debs for engaging in political speech. The law has evolved so that today, if Debs gave the same speech under comparable circumstance, he would not be prosecuted for engaging in political speech, any more than the teenager who walked around an airport during the Vietnam War with the message “Fuck the Draft” on the back of his jacket was properly prosecuted. Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971). But this is precisely what the Fulton County District Attorney is charging Trump, and his alleged co-conspirators of doing – of engaging in speech to persuade election officials in Georgia to purportedly violate Georgia law and send a different slate of electors to Washington than those selected by the popular vote in Georgia. From Trump’s perspective, assuming he was involved in this scheme, he and his alleged co-conspirators were not urging the Georgia officials to violate the law, because election fraud resulted in the appointment of “false” electors, and the electors they preferred were not “false.” Be that as it may, even rejecting this rationalization of what they were doing, they were engaging in political speech, just as Debs was engaging in political speech. What’s the difference? The difference is that Prof. Wolff and his readers admire Debs, but despise Trump.

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Michael's take...

One has to realize that U.S. religion is backed up by two, not one, constitutional laws in the 1st Amendment. That is Freedom of Religion & Freedom of Speech. The Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments were even officially set up in earlier times in courthouses across the country. One can even consider the utility of Abrahamic Religion in our country to be an extension of the laws. U.S. colonial trade led to slavery. But U.S. religion led to abolition which finally helped produce the Civil Rights Era of the mid 20th Century. In the Koran it says on the Judgment Day that we each as individuals will be aware of every atoms weight of evil or good we did back on planet Earth. Giving time, energy, or treasure to an institution that supports the backing of Civil Law is a very noble thing to do no matter how small or mean the sacrifice. Some may say that religion does much evil in the world. But then again it does much good as well. Judeo-Christian & Islamic laws also bolster up laws against theft & adultery & incest etc. And although some Muslims are terrorists most Muslims are not. And although some ministers molest children most do not. Should we destroy an entire institution for the sake of the wicked minority of us? You might as do away with schools, law & order, parents, guns, the food & drug administration, the CDC, airplanes, alcohol, trade, automobiles, and all monetary exchanges as well.

Religion often acts as an extension of ethics and of law. And whatever is an extension of law is an extension of the Constitution. (Of course, just as long as it is not an extension of draconian law.) By asking for a false vote count, Trump & his team were undermining the Rule of Law & the Constitution, & the sacred oaths they took to defend the Constitution as public servants. The key to a democracy is in the very simple act of voting. Each vote must be truthful & it must be lawful. Only then can we determine who can lawfully represent the people & who cannot. Once this fundamental axiom is overruled the group that runs the country are no longer representative of the people but of themselves. For they were not legally voted in. And when this happens you no longer have a working democracy but a working oligarchy instead. So Instead of calling our nation the United States of America you might as well call it the United Tyranny of America. And a democracy it will be no longer and forever free no longer...

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Marc's response to my response...

Michael,

When I wrote my comment about televangelists and religion and sent it to you, I of course knew that you would not agree, because you have frequently expressed your belief in the Christian faith, and in the Abrahamic religions generally, on Prof. Wolff’s blog. I, in turn, have expressed my support of Judaism. A lot of people in Georgia, and in the United States, share our beliefs in the value of religious faith, as they have a right to do under the 1st Amendment (a right that Prof. Leiter believes is overrated and should be expendable.) But, with respect, that is all beside the point. A lot of people in Georgia, and in the United States, and a lot of the readers of Prof. Wolff’s blog, believe that organized religion and its advocacy is nothing more than a form of legalized fraud, used, among other things, to raise money. In that respect, other than the protection which religion is afforded under the 1st Amendment, it would be subject to being prosecuted.

But the same is true of political speech, much of which involves the dissemination of lies – the lies that political opponents publicize about one another; the lies which lobbyists tell the public and members of Congress in order to get legislation favorable to their client passed; the lies which were expressed during the televised Republican debate Wednesday night; and the lies which Democratic politicians tell their supporters to generate campaign contributions. Lying is, and has been, an integral part of politics, since time immemorial. Ms. Willis’s RICO charge against Trump and his allies is about criminalizing lying. Now, I think I have made it clear by my past comments, that I despise Trump, and believe, as you do, that he is a danger to our democracy. I believe that it is highly likely that he knows he lost the 2020 election (although I do not believe I could prove that he knows he lost, rather than that it is highly likely that he knows he lost, without evidence that he confessed to someone that he knows he lost). I believe that if he had succeeded in persuading the Georgia officials to violate Georgia law (assuming he was as integrally involved in the scheme as Ms. Willis claims), that it would have been disastrous for our country, and in that event, would have been criminal. But the fact is that he/they did not succeed. And I believe that criminalizing spreading lies for political gain is unconstitutional, because it constitutes criminalizing political speech – dangerous political speech, but political speech nonetheless. Is it then OK to criminalize an attempt to persuade Georgia’s election officials to violate the law, even if it did not succeed? No, in the area of political speech, criminalizing an attempt is unconstitutional. Where would it stop? How about all the lobbyists who spread lies whose lies fail to effectuate the passage of legislation they are advocating for? Are their lies not an attempt to get members of Congress to vote in favor of legislation based on their lies? Does this not constitute and attempt to get members of Congress who have taken an oath to support and defend the Constitution to violate their oath?

Ms. Willis’s cure is at least as bad as the disease, if not worse. Does anyone think there are no Republican district attorneys in Georgia, and elsewhere, who are now thinking, well, if Ms. Willis can do it in Georgia, why don’t I use my state’s RICO statute to prosecute the Democrats who have been spreading lies about Republicans in my state? And around and around we will go with Republicans indicting Democrats, and vice versa.

And what I find particularly disheartening, as I have said, is that esteemed academics such as Prof. Wolff, and his highly educated and degreed readers and supporters, e.g., J. K. Mulvaney, Ph. D., John Rapko, aaall, etc., have abdicated their devotion to unbiased critical thinking and succumbed to supporting Ms. Willis’s unconstitutional, and extremely dangerous, criminalizing of political speech solely because they despise Trump (as I do) and are seeking revenge against him. They are willing to see the use of false political speech criminalized, with its terrible consequences for our democracy, just so that they can see Trump in an orange jumpsuit. Well, they are not going to see Trump in an orange jumpsuit, because the appellate courts will reverse any conviction she obtains. But, in the meantime, they are going to see the dismantling of our constitutional protection of false political speech – as dangerous as Trump’s alleged scheme to subvert the election process – just to satisfy their lust for revenge.

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The End.